How I left Christianity- With the help of Missionaries
When I was a child I didn’t question God’s existence. He was a part of my life - no doubts, just faith.
My family was pretty progressive regarding their religious beliefs. They did not believe in Hell, according to them a good God would never send anyone to such a terrible place. It is, however, important to mention that no one in my family had read the Bible, so they didn’t have a good understanding of it. That always left some questions in my mind, such as “How can you be a Christian if you don’t know your Holy Book?”, but then I quickly brushed them off.
Years later, the year I finished high school, I got to know some Christian missionaries, who were sent to my hometown by their University on a so called internship. I soon started hanging out with them on a regular basis.
The more we talked and the closer I got to their faith, the bigger my doubts became. I realised that Hell was definitely a thing among Christians and when I started reading the Bible, I felt extremely disappointed. The God I had thought to know was gone. That loving, caring and holy being I had been praying and talking to for so long slowly disappeared.
However, surprisingly, I found my passion in doing a research on religious topics, such as the history of the Bible, religious philosophy, etc. My head has been filled with questions like “Why do so many people want an afterlife?”, “How can we tell the difference between a coincidence and a sign?” and “What is the psychology behind religious thinking and commitment?”
Moreover, I have been talking to people with different beliefs, I have been going to Church more often than before and I have realised that I want to add religion to my University studies. Learning about why people believe what they believe has changed the way I view certain things completely.
It was missionaries, who made me learn more about my faith and gave me the courage to ask questions. Had I not met them, I might still be a Christian, who is afraid of questioning the religion she was brought up in.
To put things in a nutshell, the more I learned about my religion the further away I got from it. There is a saying that I made up for similar situations: We cannot know everything, but we can always learn more. And the more we learn, the clearer some things become.
